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User blog:Azyle00/The Anatomy of a Spell - Your Guide to Hero Spells
'Introduction' In response to so many "what spell should I use for blah blah...?" questions that I get and because I have done a lot of research into the spells in Little Empire over the last month, I have decided it is only right to create a comprehensive guide that examines each Spell, its use and its merits within the game. I also will get into more depth about the mechanics involved with Hero Spells in Little Empire so that new users and old alike can be brought up to speed about how spells function and which are considered the great spells and which are considered utter garbage. 'Spell Mechanics and Terms' It is important to understand the terms we use when talking about spells. We use these terms in posts and in talking as well as on our Spell Listings page. Further, there are a few other things that we need to touch upon as far as how spells function and produce results for us. *DPS (Damage Per Second) - This term stems from many MMORPGs and online games. Simply put, it refers to how much damage per second this spell can produce. It is used to measure one spells output VS another in particular when spells have "Cool Down" periods of different speeds. It is not the actual damage that a spell does every second, rather it is a figure that takes the damage it delivers and then divides the spell by its Cool Down time to allow us to compare 1 spell to another in relative terms. *Maximum Damage - This is a term that refers to the most damage a spell can possibly deliver. It is based on the spell hitting the maximum number of targets and doing its full damage to all those targets. If a spell does 100 damage to each of 9 targets at the same time, we would say that it has a maximum damage of 900. *Maximum Single Target Damage - This term refers to the most damage a spell can possibly deliver to a single target. It does not mean it can only hit 1 target, but rather the maximum damage any 1 single target can take from it being affected by the spell. If a spell does 100 damage to each of 9 targets at the same time, we would say that it has a maximum single target damage of 100. *Cool Down Time - This is a game term that refers to the time in seconds that it takes for the spell to become active and available to be used and after it is used, the time before it is ready again. *Shorten Spell Cool Down Time - Also related to Cool Down Time, it is a benefit from armor, weapons and rings that will decrease the Cool Down Time of all your spells by a percent amount of its original base Cool Down Time. *Dimishing Returns - A spell that when cast at the start of a battle of an Area of Effect (AOE) nature is typically operating at maximum potential. However, as the number of units of the Enemy decreases and spreads apart, often we refer to the spell as having a factorized Diminishing Returns. Example is that Demon Blast hits a 3x3 target area and can hit up to 9 targets. However, as the battle progresses, you will find there is no place to cast the spell and achieve its Maximum Damage potential. Therefore it is said to have Diminishing Returns as the battle progresses. Furthermore, Demon Blast has another Dimishing Returns factor in that it strikes the same area 3 times in a row. If the target(s) that is directed at die on its first hit, it will still cast the next two strikes at the same place hitting nothing because the target died and this is another Diminishing Returns factor. *Spell Gone Dead - A spell is said to have "gone dead" if during the battle, casting it will no longer produce any result at all. A good example would be the Melee strike spells, which are considered "gone dead" if your Hero is pounding on the Enemy Wall and therefore unable to hit any targets with the spell. *Stun Effect - Although there is not a single "stun" spell in the game that has that direct ability to paralyze a unit or a Hero, many of the spells have the effect similar to a crit in melee that causes the target to have a brief 1 round or 1 swing "stunned" impact occur. These spells do damage and stun the enemy briefly and the stun effect adds value to the spell. Some further notes about spells that are critical to understand: *Your Hero can only equip 3 spells at one time. *You cannot equip the same spell twice. Your three spells must all be different spells. *You buy spells with Mojo, but you can only sell a spell for Gold. *Defense of your Hero does not lower the spell damage your Hero will take from a spell. *Spells do the same damage to all targets regardless of Armor or class. *Units considered "weak" to magic attacks are not "weaker" to Hero spells. *Units and your Hero cannot "resist" spells or avoid them. They never miss and they always do the damage to the target they hit and the damage is always the same. *When you Hero casts a spell, their is a very short casting time and your Hero will skip an attack swing or possibly two depending on how fast his attack rate is. Spells take about 1 second to cast, but you will miss taking one swing of your weapon while casting. *Your Hero stops moving if he is advancing when you cast a spell. *You can only cast 1 spell at a time. *All Heroes have access to the same spells and all Heroes cast those spells with the same power. *Spells do not damage the Castle Wall of your Enemy even if it appears that they hit the Wall when cast. Example is Mystical Blast, although it seems to hit the Enemy Castle Wall, it does not do 117 damage to the Enemy Castle Wall. 'Maximum "Shorten Cool Down Time" for Heroes' Each Hero gets access to unique armor and weapons and access to the same rings. Some of the equipment has an effect called "Shorten Cool Down Time" and a percent. The percents are added together and then applied to the Cool Down Time. They are not compounded. Wearing 2 pieces with 10% Shorten Cool Down Time reduces the Cool Down Time of your spells base by 20% total. This is a good thing because if each was applied one after the other, you would actually be losing net effect as each one shortens the time and then the next one shortens the shorter time. They are simply added up and applied. Each Hero therefore has a different Maximum Shorten Cool Down Time they can achieve with the items available to them. This is based on wearing the best possible and the most possible Shorten Cool Down Items available to them. Because Tier 5 Armor can only be "won" and not bought, we do not consider them part of the maximum as so few players manage to get these pieces. We calculate this only on items that can be bought and therefore easily obtained by the player base. *Behemoth: 67% or 71% with Wristbands of Fury bug *Berserker: 67% *Succubus: 75% So with this in mind, all spells have a base Cool Down Time, for example, Deep Purple has a 22 second base Cool Down Time, but a fully geared Succubus has reduced the Cool Down Time of this spell to a mere 5.5 seconds. Now as Deep Purple has a Single Target Base DPS of 12.5, with the add Shorten Cool Down Effect, her Single Target Base DPS is now 50.2. It is important to look at Spells and they damage they do with these DPS figures in mind for Single Targets and Multiple Targets to get a true idea of what Spell is going to deliver the most DPS during an entire length of a battle and then to understand if our goal is to kill the Enemy Hero or to kill enemy units as fast as we can. 'The Spells - Reviewed' I am not going to relist all the details of every spell here as much as talk about the spell itself. If you need a reference, please our entire spell listing located here: http://littleempire.wikia.com/wiki/Spells 'Melee Spells' Melee spells are exactly like they sound, something a melee Hero will use and are most commonly used by the Behemoth and the Berserker at lower and mid levels and rarely, if at all, by a Succubus as they simply do not work with her range ability. The melee spells are all similar as they hit all 4 rows in front of the Hero and travel a depth of 3 units. They suffer issues when dealing with units that occupy 4 spaces (2x2 units). They tend to become less efficient overall at higher levels typically 25+ Shattering Strike Without a doubt this is a Noob spell and is the only spell all Heroes begin the game with. Although it helps a little in those early tasks and Arena battles, it typically is a useless spell overall and is quickly replaced. Since we get it for free, we never would think about buying it. The Succubus also starts with this spell which is really stupid as it is utterly useless to her as she is not a melee class Hero. It does have a stun effect, but with a damage of 10 points, I would hope it gets upgraded quickly. 'Sorrow Smash' The first upgrade to the melee Hero spell line comes with a nice upgrade to damage potential and for the spend thrifty, one can easily justify buying this spell in order to help them level faster. But that is really all I can say about it. It is not End Game and certainly is going to get replaced at a later time in the player's career. It is certainly not a viable spell for the Succubus. for the melee Hero it can easily support Air Bash and Mystical Blast as a triple threat allowing a "line clearing" of 4 rows in front of the Hero. It is quite useful for leveling well up into the mid 20s. With it's stun effect and fairly decent damage output, it is a highly useful mid range spell. The player who can afford to buy it at Level 9 and not suffer to badly losing this early Mojo should consider buying it early as it will help them get past the next few levels a lot easier and quicker. 'Air Bash' I was always a big fan of Air Bash and have heavily endorsed melee Heroes to save all their Mojo with the intention to buy Air Bash at Level 13. Unless you are on a real serious budget and not in a huge hurry to level up and are juicing the wheel spins for everything they are worth, this is a must buy spell for a melee to help them level. It is useful well past Level 20, even Level 25 and it can still be a part of your roster. It has the stun effect and delivers great DPS when you need it, thinning the pack before your Hero and letting you dispatch with Priests and Shamans in a couple of casts or quicker depending on your other spells. Paired up with Sorrow Smash, it becomes a line clearing spell. If you are a Berserker or Behemoth and wonder what you are saving your Mojo for other than End Game gear and spells, then this is your answer. Its primary downfall is the way it misfires when dealing with units that take 4 spaces, making it less and less useful the higher you level. 'Line Spells' Line spells are blasts of energy that deliver damage in a two row path from your Hero all the way to the back wall, and typically at lower levels, hitting 14 targets at once allowing them to deliver some nice DPS. They suffer from one bad effect which is that they actually are helping your Hero clear his two lane path faster, meaning he will race towards the back wall sooner and often you want him to be the one soaking up missile fire from the enemy units above and below him, helping your own units to survive, in other words, tanking damage. The line spells, despite appearing to hit the Enemy Wall, do not actually damage it. Nor do they have the stun effect like the Melee Spells do. Overall, they are useful at hitting a Succubus in the back row, softening her up before a melee gets to her and also for a Succubus to use to do damage to the field, but given the damage they deliver and their negative aspects, they lack really what is required to be called End Game spells or even leveling spells. There are just so many better choices. Mystical Blast is often the exception. For melee Heroes, the Line spells all suffer from diminishing returns as the rows ahead of you die, becoming less and less effective as you progress forward and often suffer from having "gone dead" once all enemies in those rows are dead and you are racing to the wall. 'Fire Blast' This spell is a joke honestly. Yes it is cheap and easy to get early, but for what it delivers and lacking any kind of stun effect, it is useless. Because there are better spells just around the corner, I would call buying this spell a stupid waste of Mojo. You do not need it early and you do not need it later and it simply does not really give you any more edge than you already have. It should be the "Starter Free Spell" for Succubus class instead of Shattering Strike. 'Blue Flare' Well first off, it should have been called "Blue Blast" but like so many other confusing naming conventions in Little Empire, it deviates from a pattern. It is merely a double powered Fire Blast. And if Fire Blast was useless then you can bet a version of it that is simply like having two of them cast at once is almost equally as useless. It costs 120 Mojo and that is about 100 Mojo than it should cost for how useful it will be to you. This is one of those things in Little Empire that is poorly balanced and needs revision to at least make it a viable thing to waste Mojo on at Level 10. I would love this to be an early option even for Succubus to be able to add something to the game at lower levels because she really is a back seat driver until she gets to higher levels and also until she gets some spells she can use from range. This spell is not a good choice for a Succubus either. It has no stun effect as well. I would raise the Damage to 44, make the spell cost 99 Mojo and make it available at Level 9 to balance it. 'Mystical Blast' I was a big fan of Mystical Blast when I bought it at Level 18, the level you can first get it. Finally a line spell with some decent damage output and it really worked well with Sorrow Smash and Air Bash for clearing 4 lanes with my Behemoth. I leveled very fast after Level 18 until about Level 25 when the Melee spells began to lose their impact due to bugged firings and lack of necessity to break a formation wide open up the middle. I still liked the spell simply because Mystical Blast + Air Bash = Dead Priests behind Hero. It also allowed me to pour on some early damage to the Succubus as I was clearing a path to her with the intent of tearing her to pieces. Alas, Succubus get all grown up and do not flop over so easily past Level 25, often range firing right back at you while you charge at her and healing back through Absorb the damage you have delivered with it. I hate how it diminishes over time and really hate how it often goes dead. Furthermore, when rolling Noobs at the high End Game, I have a hard time even wanting to cast it because it only pushes me deeper to the Enemy Wall and once I hit that Wall, I start to quickly end the battle and often miss getting the lone Troll Cyborg on my wall to die in time with my other AOE spells. I hate missing any XP because the amount of XP each day is limited. Sure at Level 35, clearing boards as fast as possible will be the idea, but even so, there are better overall DPS spells available in the AOE lines. Also, at my Level, the pause to cast it is almost the same as my swings, that hesitation in casting creates a loss of melee DPS and a loss of my own Absorb healing, so in HERO vs HERO fights, it can actually be a detriment to my fighting. It does not stun, so they swing and I do not, this actually can be seen as going backwards. Casting it at Succubus is pretty useless as she can heal back the 117 damage with her own attacks in quite a short time. It lacks the DPS dump I need vs other Heroes and just does not fit the melee end game style. I am sure Succubus find it more useful and I see many using it, but I still do not think people have really considered exactly how it works and why it is more or less useless in most situations. And lacking any form of impact stun further makes the arguement for it as a End Game spell weaker. You miss a swing while they do not and this is simply to achieve 117 Damage on the enemy target Hero. So it fails to meet the requirements of a good single target spell and lacks the versatality and overall high DPS as an AOE spell as well as diminishing as the battle progresses and often going completely dead for use. I just cannot consider it a true End Game Spell and given its 600 Mojo cost, it certainly is not a great use of Mojo as a leveling spell either. 'Necromancy' All I really want to say about Necromancy is simply: underbalanced. Main points are this, they sound good on paper and many new low level players try these spells, thinking that they will be a great way to impact their battles in a positive light but simply put, they are cheap defensive spells that often only really shine if you have a very fast Cool Down Time or are the most defensive, scared player ever, and in Little Empire, being defensive is a good way to get rolled. This is a highly offensive game, it is not Tower Defense, it is roast the enemy. These spells do not add DPS as they do not really even cross out of your end of the field and enter the enemy side. Footmen and Trolls never get a chance to do any damage to enemy units if you are actually trying to win battles and not fighting in situations far over your head. Perhaps mid level Wall Race strategies could make them quite viable to auto win over and over, but you would need all 3 of them and good Cool Down Time to keep chain casting them as well as having spent 300 Mojo total to get them all. And sorry to say, no matter what Hero you are playing, there is a far better use of 300 Mojo when it comes to buying spells. Pure and simple. ** *4 Necromancy **4.1 Footmen Spirit **4.2 Troll Spirit **4.3 Archer Spirit *5 Area of Effect (AOE) **5.1 Scourge of Doom **5.2 Blue Blast **5.3 Demon Blast *6 Voodoo **6.1 Voodoo Strike **6.2 Mad Bones **6.3 Deep Purple *7 Holy Spells **7.1 Holy Light **7.2 Shattering Light Category:Blog posts Category:Blog posts